New York City considers tent cities for migrants in Central Park, other green spaces

Central and Eastern European countries mark 20 years in NATO with focus on war in Ukraine

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Several central and Eastern European countries began marking on Thursday the 20th anniversary of the largest expansion of the NATO military alliance when formerly socialist countries became members of the bloc.

Military aircraft roared over the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. At the main airbase hosting Spanish and Portuguese fighter jets tasked with NATO air policing missions in the Baltic region, officials gathered to commemorate the event.

“Russia’s new bloody terror in Europe is contributing to the growth of instability and threats around the world. However, we in Lithuania are calm because we know that we will never be alone again,” said President Gitanas Nauseda, standing near the runway where the first NATO jets landed back in 2004. “We will always have a strong, supportive Alliance family by our side, and we will face any challenges together.”

Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined NATO on March 29 in 2004, bringing the total membership of the Alliance to 26. The seven nations started accession negotiations soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually were invited to join at the Prague Summit in November 2002. Another group of former Soviet satellites including Poland and the Czech Republic had been admitted several years earlier.

Since joining the alliance, these countries often warned about the threat of Russia, using their national trauma of Soviet occupation as proof of credibility. While Western nations often dismissed their sometimes hawkish attitude, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is seen as a vindication of those fears. They have given some of the most robust responses, helping Ukraine with equipment and money, and pushing for even greater sanctions on Russia.

Most of the former Soviet Republics that joined NATO at the turn of the millennium spend more than the required 2% of gross domestic product on defense. When Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis announced his bid earlier this month to become the next leader of the alliance, he emphasized the threat from Russia and said the alliance needs a “renewal of perspectives” that Eastern Europe could provide.

“Russia is proving to be a serious and long-term threat to our continent, to our Euro-Atlantic security,” the 65-year-old said when he announced his bid. “NATO’s borders become of paramount importance, and the strengthening of the eastern flank … will remain a long-term priority.”

The seven countries are marking the anniversary with solemn events and shows of force, but also some levity, with open-air concerts and exhibitions.

“Twenty years ago the Bulgarian people made the right choice for our country to join NATO,” the country’s defense chief Adm. Emil Eftimov said. “Given today’s security situation, this is the most appropriate decision we have made in our recent history.”

NATO was established in the aftermath of World War II.

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Associated Press writers Stephen McGrath in Sighisoara, Romania, and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria contributed to this report.

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In Central America and Mexico, families of workers lost in Baltimore bridge collapse mourn them

AZACUALPA, Honduras — The construction workers who went missing in the Baltimore bridge collapse came to the Maryland area from Mexico or Central America, including an enterprising Honduran father and husband who started a delivery business before the pandemic forced him to find other work, according to his family.

Police managed to close bridge traffic seconds before a cargo ship slammed into one of the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s supports early Tuesday, causing the span to fall into the frigid Patapsco River. There wasn’t time for a maintenance crew filling potholes on the span to get to safety.

At least eight people fell into the water and two were rescued. Two bodies were recovered Wednesday and four remained missing and were presumed dead.

The governments of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras confirmed that their citizens were among the missing.

Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, 38, was the youngest of eight siblings from Azacualpa, a rural mountainous area in northwestern Honduras along the border with Guatemala.

Eighteen years ago, he set out on his own for the U.S. looking for opportunities. He had worked as an industrial technician in Honduras, repairing equipment in the large assembly plants, but the pay was too low to get ahead, one of his brothers, Martín Suazo Sandoval, said Wednesday while standing in the dirt street in front of the family’s small hotel in Honduras.

“He always dreamed of having his own business,” he said.

Another brother, Carlos Suazo Sandoval, said Maynor hoped to retire one day back in Guatemala.

“He was the baby for all of us, the youngest. He was someone who was always happy, was always thinking about the future. He was a visionary,” he told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday from Dundalk, Maryland, near the site of the bridge collapse.

Maynor entered the United States illegally and settled in Maryland. At first, he did any work he could find, including construction and clearing brush. Eventually, he started a package delivery business in the Baltimore-Washington area, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.

Other siblings and relatives followed him north.

Carlos Suazo Sandoval speaks with a reporter on the phone, in Dundalk, Md., on March 27, 2024. Brian Witte / AP

“He was the fundamental pillar, the bastion so that other members of the family could also travel there and later get visas and everything,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said. “He was really the driving force so that most of the family could travel.”

Maynor has a wife and two children ages 17 and 5, he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Maynor to find other work, and he joined Brawner Builders, the company that was performing maintenance on the bridge when it collapsed.

Martín Suazo Sandoval said Maynor never talked about being scared of the work, despite the heights he worked at on the bridges. “He always told us that you had to triple your effort to get ahead,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said. “He said it didn’t matter what time or where the job was, you had to be where the work was.”

Things had been going well for him until the collapse. He was moving through the steps to get legal residency and planned to return to Honduras this year to complete the process, his brother said.

Even though Maynor had not been able to return to Honduras, he had financially supported various nongovernmental social organizations in town, as well as the youth soccer league, his brother said. The area depends largely upon agriculture — coffee, cattle, sugarcane — he said.

Maynor’s employer broke the news of his disappearance to his family, leaving them devastated, especially his mother, who still lives in Azacualpa, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.

“These are difficult moments, and the only thing we can do is keep the faith,” he said, noting that his younger brother knew how to swim and could have ended up anywhere. If the worst outcome is confirmed, he said the family would work to return his body to Honduras.

Martin Suazo Sandoval speaks with reporters outside his home in Azacualpa, Honduras — Martín Suazo Sandoval speaks with reporters outside his home in Azacualpa, Honduras, on March 27, 2024.Claudio Escalón / AP

In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said three Mexicans were on the bridge when it fell, including one who was injured but rescued and two who were still missing. He wouldn’t share their names for the families’ privacy.

The tragedy illustrated the contributions that migrants make to the U.S. economy, López Obrador said.

“This demonstrates that migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight. And for this reason, they do not deserve to be treated as they are by certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States,” he said.

Later, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, announced that the bodies of two men, ages 35 and 26, had been located by divers inside a red pickup submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the bridge’s middle span.

One was Guatemalan Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, and the other 35-year-old Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, originally from Mexico.

Guatemala’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had earlier confirmed that two of its citizens were among the missing. And El Salvador’s foreign minister, Alexandra Hill Tinoco, posted Wednesday on X that one Salvadoran citizen, Miguel Luna, was among the missing workers.

Federal and state investigators have said the crash appears to have been an accident.

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Poland’s ruling coalition to bring central bank head before court over hurting state interests

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The majority of Poland’s r uling pro-European Union coalition lawmakers have taken steps Tuesday to bring the head of the central bank before a special court on allegations of acting against the country’s financial interests and abusing his powers.

The motion to try National Bank of Poland chief Adam Glapiński before the State Tribunal is part of the coalition’s efforts to reverse the actions of its right-wing predecessors, widely considered undemocratic, and to bring those responsible to account.

The tribunal’s tasked with trying top state officials suspected of violations of the nation’s constitution and laws.

The controversial Glapiński was appointed in 2016 by the then-ruling conservative Law and Justice party and is currently in his 2nd term. The allegations against him include unlawful funding of state deficit from state-issued securities, weakening of the national currency, the zloty, ahead of key elections, acting in the interest of Law and Justice and helping its electoral campaign, as well as approving hefty bonuses for himself

The coalition, which came to power in December and is led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, filed the motion at the parliament office, thus beginning a lengthy procedure that could strip Glapiński of his post and get him banned from all state positions.

The motion filed by 191 lawmakers of the coalition will spur an investigation of the allegations by a special parliamentary committee, which if substantiated, will require parliamentarians to vote on trying Glapiński before the tribunal.

Observers say this procedure can take up to a year.

Four cases have been heard before the tribunal since it was established in 1921. Most cases have been dismissed but two of the defendants were banned from active political life.

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Powerful storm brings heavy rain and snow to Central Plains and Midwest, making travel ‘almost impossible’

A powerful storm brought heavy winds, snow and rain to the central United States on Monday, making travel hazardous and “nearly impossible” in some areas, with extreme weather on both coasts set to last into Tuesday.

The National Weather Service said early Monday that the Northern and Central Plains into the Upper Midwest would be affected, with sleet and freezing rain reaching as far as the Mississippi Valley.

Minnesota could see snowfall of 6 to 12 inches an hour, bringing travel chaos to the Twin Cities.

A 51-year-old woman died Sunday in Burnsville, 15 miles south of Minneapolis, after her vehicle ran off the road and struck a tree, police said.

Minnesota State Patrol named her as Elizabeth Evans of Lakeville and said she was driving north on Interstate 35E approaching County Road 42 at the time of the accident, NBC News affiliate station KARE 11 reported.

The state patrol said there had been at least 328 crashes reported as of 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, involving 13 injuries. More than 200 vehicles spun out or slid off roads, while 10 semi-trailers jack-knifed.

Some 20 million people across the continental United States, from the West Coast to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, were subject to weather warnings Sunday.

California was rocked by a spring storm on Sunday, with hailstones the size of quarters and winds as strong as 60 mph, the NWS said. Lake Tahoe received about a foot of snow, potentially a boost for ski resorts — although several were forced to close ski lifts on Saturday after recording wind gusts measuring more than 90 mph.

Dramatic video captured the moment the L.A. Fire Department rescued a 35-year-old woman from the Los Angeles River, fast-moving and swollen from the storm waters. She was picked out of the rapids by a firefighter lowered by a rescue helicopter. She was taken to a hospital with only minor injuries and hypothermia, the fire department said.

Hundreds of traffic accidents across the Northeast were reported to police overnight as icy conditions took hold.

Over the weekend a powerful weather system battered the tri-state area, with more than 2 feet of snow and downed power lines in some parts. Vermont saw as much as 30 inches of snow, the weather service said.

More than 100,000 customers were still without power in Maine, along with 22,000 in New Hampshire and 12,000 in New York, as of 6:30 a.m. ET Monday, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks energy connections.

Central Maine Power, the state’s largest utility, said in a statement early Monday that it had returned power to half the 200,000 customers affected by the storm, after responding to some 775 emergency calls.

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Extremism endangers Germany’s prosperity, warns central bank chief

The current rise of right-wing extremism in Germany poses a threat to the country’s prosperity, central bank head Joachim Nagel has warned.

“I appeal to everyone not to take the threat of right-wing extremism lightly,” Nagel, 57, told the newspapers of the Funke media group on Saturday. “Right-wing extremists also scare off investors and skilled workers from abroad. That threatens our prosperity.”

Nagel, like many people in Germany, was voicing concern at the recent string of election victories for the far-right, anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Profiting from anxiety among many German voters over rising numbers seeking asylum in the country, the surge of the AfD has led to fierce debate in society at large. Thousands of people joined anti-extremism demonstrations all over the country in recent months.

As a citizen, Nagel said he too was very concerned about the developments. “That’s why I recently took part in a rally for democracy in Frankfurt for the first time in my life.”

The president of the Bundesbank said he did not want to minimize the enormous challenges facing the country, and also appealed to business organizations not to talk down the economic situation.

“But we shouldn’t make the situation worse than it actually is. Otherwise nobody will come to Germany and invest. We are not the sick man of Europe,” emphasized Nagel.

He went on the say that he is not satisfied if the economy only treads water this year. However, Germany is in a special situation because its large, open economy was hit particularly hard by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time, Nagel pointed to the stable labour market, noting that “Germany has almost full employment.”

The banker still called for more ambition in terms of tax cuts and reducing bureaucracy. The Growth Opportunities Act contains less tax relief than originally planned, but it is now important to actually implement it, he said.

Germany’s Bundesrat, the upper chamber comprised of the leaders of Germany’s 16 states, passed the slimmed-down law on Friday.

The volume of tax relief had previously been reduced from the originally planned €7 billion ($7.5 billion) to €3.2 billion per year in the mediation committee of the Bundesrat and the Bundestag parliament.

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Central African Republic President Touadéra set to win referendum with Wagner help

A voter casts his ballot at the Boganda high school in Bangui, on July 30, 2023 — Critics are calling it a constitutional coup

A referendum allowing the president of the Central African Republic (CAR) to run for office as many times as he likes has been labelled a farce by opponents.

Provisional results say 95% of voters backed changes to the constitution, but critics say turnout was as low as 10%.

CAR is still in the throes of a civil war that has uprooted a third of all people from their homes.

President Faustin-Archange Touadéra is backed by Russian Wagner mercenaries.

Extra fighters arrived ahead of the referendum to provide security.

Wagner forces have been accused of committing war crimes as they back President Touadéra in the fight against rebel groups who still control large swathes of the country.

They reportedly trade in the minerals and timber industries.

The proposed new law would scrap the current two-term limit and extend the presidential mandate from five to seven years.

It would also ban politicians with dual citizenship from running for president unless they renounce the other.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch says this stirs up memories of anti-Balaka militias who targeted Muslims for their perceived association with Séléka rebels in the 2013 conflict, which saw hundreds killed in a civil conflict that continues to this day.

Opposition parties and some civil society groups boycotted the referendum vote on 30 July, calling it a “constitutional coup” designed to keep President Touadéra in power for life.

They also say the election process lacked transparency and there was not enough consultation beforehand.

Under the changes, a new post of vice-president would be created, who would be appointed by the president. The Senate would be scrapped and parliament would be transformed into a single chamber.

The president and members of his United Hearts Party say they are following the “will of the people”.

Final results have yet to be published by the election authority.

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New York City considers tent cities for migrants in Central Park, other green spaces

New York City considers tent cities for migrants in Central Park, other green spaces – CBS News

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With shelters full, New York City officials may erect tents in the city’s parks to accommodate migrants. Around 95,000 migrants have arrived in New York over the last 15 months. Max Rivlin-Nadler, a reporter for local New York City publication Hell Gate, joined CBS News to discuss the situation.

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Pence fought an order to testify but now is a central figure in his former boss’s indictment

NEW YORK (AP) — Mike Pence fought the Department of Justice in court to try to avoid testifying against his former boss. But in Tuesday’s federal indictment, the former vice president plays a central role in the first criminal charges against Donald Trump that deal with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The 45-page indictment is informed, in part, by contemporaneous notes that Pence kept of their conversations in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as Trump tried to pressure Pence to go along with his desperate — and prosecutors say illegal — scheme to keep the two men in power.

Among the discussions: An episode in which Trump is alleged to have told Pence that he was “too honest” for rejecting Trump’s false claims that Pence had the power to overturn the vote. “Bottom line – won every state by 100,000s of votes,” Trump said in another conversation, according to the indictment.

Pence, who is among a crowded field of Republicans now challenging Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination, has spent much of his nascent campaign defending his decision to defy Trump. He launched his bid with a firm denunciation of his two-time running mate, saying Trump had “demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice.”

Still, Pence said last month that he did not believe Trump had broken the law in connection with Jan. 6 and has repeatedly questioned the Department of Justice’s motivations for investigating him.

On Tuesday night, he hit anew on his belief that Trump was unfit to serve again.

“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” he said in a statement. “Our country is more important than one man. Our Constitution is more important than any one man’s career.”

Despite his once-prominent position as Trump’s No. 2, Pence has struggled to make progress in his presidential campaign. Many of the former president’s most loyal supporters still blame him for Trump’s loss, believing Trump’s false claims that he could have used his ceremonial role overseeing the counting of the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 to prevent Democrat Joe Biden from becoming president.

Trump critics, on the other hand, fault Pence as being complicit in Trump’s most controversial actions and standing by his side for so many years. Until the insurrection, Pence had been an extraordinarily loyal defender of his former boss.

With just three weeks until the first 2024 GOP presidential debate, it’s unclear if Pence will even qualify to make the stage. He has yet to meet the donor minimum, though he has reached the polling threshold.

The former Indiana governor was making a campaign stop Wednesday at the Indiana State Fair to give a speech about his economic plans.

In Washington, Pence has refused to testify before the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack, dismissing the probe as politicized. He fought a subpoena demanding he testify before a grand jury, arguing that, because he was serving on Jan. 6 as president of the Senate, he was protected under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause from being forced to testify. That provision is intended to protect members of Congress from questioning about official legislative acts.

Pence eventually complied when a judge refused to block his appearance, but said he wouldn’t be forced to answer questions related to his role as Senate president.

Trump’s lawyers had objected, too, citing executive privilege concerns.

Trump’s new indictment outlines his and his allies’ frantic efforts to remain in power. After first trying to persuade state lawmakers to reject certifying Biden’s win, it says, they focused on Jan. 6 and “sought to enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the certification to fraudulently alter the election results.”

They tried to persuade him to accept slates of fake electors or to reject states’ electoral votes and send them back to state legislatures for further review, the indictment says.

That effort included a series of phone calls in late December and early January, including on Christmas Day.

“You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome,” Pence said during one call with Trump, the indictment says.

In another, on New Year’s Day, Trump berated Pence, telling him, “You’re too honest” — an episode also recounted in Pence’s book “So Help Me God.”

Some Trump claims were viewed as dangerous. During a private meeting on Jan. 5, he “grew frustrated” at Pence and told the then-vice president that he would have to publicly criticize him. Concerned for Pence’s safety, his chief of staff, Marc Short, alerted the head of Pence’s Secret Service detail.

The indictment also outlines how Trump worked to falsely convince his supporters that Pence had the power to overturn the results.

Immediately after their final conversation before the riot, on the morning of Jan. 6, the indictment alleges that Trump revised the speech he was set to give at the Ellipse, “reinserting language that he had personally drafted earlier that morning – falsely claiming that the Vice President had authority to send electoral votes to the states – but that advisors had previously successfully advocated be removed.”

Trump, in his speech, repeated his false claims of election fraud, and again gave false hope to his supporters that Pence had the power to change the outcome.

Not long after, hundreds of Trump’s supporters were slamming through barricades, battling with police and breaking into the Capitol building — some chanting “Hang Mike Pence” as the former vice president and his family were rushed to safety.

And even after the rioters were cleared from the Capitol and Congress reconvened to certify the results, Trump’s allies were still trying to get Pence to intervene, emailing his attorney to urge that he seek further delay by adjourning the session for 10 days.

Pence instead certified the election, finalizing his and Trump’s defeat.

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Lebanon’s central bank governor ends 30-year tenure under investigation during dire economic crisis

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s embattled central bank governor stepped down Monday under a cloud of investigation and blame for his country’s economic crisis as several European countries probe him for alleged financial crimes.

Riad Salameh, 73, ended his 30-year tenure atop the central bank as tearful employees took photos and a band played celebratory music with drums and trumpets.

In that same building, his four vice governors, led by incoming interim governor Wassim Mansouri, quickly pivoted to urge fiscal reforms for the cash-strapped country.

“We are at a crossroads,” Mansouri said at a news conference. “There is no choice, if we continue previous policy … the funds in the Central Bank will eventually dry up.”

Seventy-three-year-old Riad Salameh kicked off his tenure as central bank governor in 1993, three years after Lebanon’s bloody 15-year civil war came to an end. It was a time when reconstruction loans and aid was pouring into the country, and Salameh was widely celebrated at the time for his role in Lebanon’s recovery.

Now, he leaves his post a wanted man in Europe, accused by many in Lebanon of being a main culprit in the country’s financial downfall since late 2019.

It was a steep fall for a leader whose policies were once hailed for keeping the currency stable. Later, many financial experts saw him as setting up a house of cards that crumbled as the country’s supply of dollars dried up on top of decades of rampant and corruption and mismanagement from Lebanon’s ruling parties.

The crisis has pulverized the Lebanese pound and wiped out the savings of many Lebanese, as the banks ran dry of hard currency.

With the country’s banks crippled and public sector in ruins, Lebanon for years has run on a cash-based economy and relied primarily on tourism and remittances from millions in the diaspora.

Mansouri said previous policies that permitted the Central Bank to spend large sums on money to prop up the Lebanese state is no longer feasible. He cited years of spending billions of dollars to subsidize fuel, medicine, and wheat and more to keep the value of the Lebanese pound stable.

Instead, Mansouri proposed a six-month reform plan that included passing long awaited reforms such as capital controls, a bank restructuring law, and the 2023 state budget.

“The country cannot continue without passing these laws,” Mansouri explained. “We don’t have time, and we paid a heavy price that we cannot pay anymore.”

The reforms Mansouri mentioned are among those the International Monetary Fund set as conditions on Lebanon in April 2022 for a bailout plan, though he did not mention the IMF. None have been passed.

France, Germany, and Luxembourg are investigating Salameh and his associates over myriad financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and the laundering of $330 million. Paris and Berlin issued Interpol notices to the central bank chief in May, though Lebanon does not hand over its citizens to foreign countries.

Salameh has repeatedly denied the allegations and insisted that his wealth comes from his previous job as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, inherited properties, and investments. He has criticized the probe and said it was part of a media and political campaign to scapegoat him.

In his final interview as governor, Salameh said on Lebanese television that the responsibility for reforms lies with the government.

“Everything I did for the past 30 years was to try to serve Lebanon and the Lebanese,” he said. “Some — the majority — were grateful, even if they don’t want to say so. And there are other people, well may God forgive them.”

Salameh’s departure adds another gap to crisis-hit Lebanon’s withering and paralyzed institutions. The tiny Mediterranean country has been without a president nine months, while its government has been running in a limited caretaker capacity for a year. Lebanon has also been without a top spy chief to head its General Security Directorate since March.

Lebanese officials in recent months were divided over whether Salameh should stay in his post or whether he should step down immediately in the remaining months of his tenure.

Caretaker Economy Amin Salam wanted the latter, given that the central bank chief had a “legal question mark.”

“I cannot explain anyone holding on to a person while a nation is failing unless there is something wrong or hidden,” Salam told The Associated Press.

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